The present invention is directed to an ice rink dasher board system. Conventional dasher boards surrounding the ice surface of an ice rink fail to provide a mechanism for minimizing injury when a skater contacts the boards. Such contact is of course typical in the game of hockey, as players may be checked into the boards with great force, often resulting in injury.
One earlier attempt to increase skaters' safety can be seen in Swiss Patent No. 645,275. This patent discloses hockey barrier supports having a resilient pad placed between a base plate and a mounting plate to reduce the number of injuries to skaters and the cooling system. However, this system is inadequate in that it does not provide for varying degree of flexibility of the dasher boards.
In addition, it has been common practice in the industry to use the laborious and somewhat inadequate method of applying a silicone-type caulking to the juncture between the dasher boards and the concrete rink floor to prevent seepage of water beneath the dasher boards. Water seeping under the dasher boards can cause significant damage to the ice rink furnishings and the like. Further, because such caulking materials have such an extreme coefficient of expansion, the vast temperature differential between the time of installation of the caulking and the time of operation of the rink, causes the caulking material to contract, thus causing the seal to fail.
Typically, egress doors are located as required around the rink perimeter. These doors may offer directional egress to key facility interior rooms, such as concession areas, locker rooms, and skate changing areas. It has been standard practice to provide these doors with a bevy of heavy duty steel latches to securely fix the door in its closed position. To avoid potential injury to a skater, the ice rink side of the dasher boards must be smooth. Thus, any handles or latches are located outside of the ice rink and are inaccessible to the skaters.
Not only is this inconvenient for the skaters, who must rely on the ice rink staff to let them off the ice, it creates a serious fire hazard. The typical skating session may involve up to 2,000 persons on the ice sheet. In an emergency situation, these people must wait for a staff member or spectator to open the door.
Some dasher board manufacturers, forced by local fire code enforcement, have installed standard latching hardware with a hole drilled through the handrail. A cable running through the hole with a large pull ring can be used to actuate the latch mechanism from the ice sheet side of the dasher boards. Yet this arrangement sacrifices skater safety in another way, in that the ring may catch clothing, fingers, etc. and cause serious injury. Moreover, the latch can be inadvertently released by contact during a hockey game, for example, thus opening the door at an undesirable time.
In order to reduce maintenance and cleaning, dasher board manufacturers have attempted to use high density polyethylene materials as various components of the dasher board system. Several dasher board manufacturers have mounted polyethylene sheets to a steel frame, although the resulting structure suffered from poor performance. In order to improve hockey puck rebound, a 3/4 inch thick standard exterior grade pre-facing has been applied to the polyethylene.
Unfortunately, standard grade plywoods exposed to the high moisture conditions encountered in ice arenas are subject to rapid deterioration through water absorption, rot, mold, mildew, etc. Additionally, cleaning and painting of the plywood, non-ice side of the dasher boards presents a large project and substantial expense for ice arena maintenance crews several times each year.